Election Day

If you like me live in the 9th Congressional District, though, you're electing a Congressman today. There's no way that district is going to vote for the winner of the Democratic primary, so the winner of today's Republican contest will be the victor in November as well.

This is one of the hot TEA Party races this year, too. The favorite of the Republican establishment is facing an insurgent campaign from one Martha Zoller, who apparently is a "radio talk show host, conservative swashbuckler, and Tea Party favorite."

I was initially suspicious of Ms. Zoller based on her advertising campaign, which made billboards that read just "Martha!" That kind of thing smacks of the cult of personality, although Hillary(!) did it too, and nobody ever mistook her for a charismatic. I voted for her in the Democratic Primary in 2008, and I'm only sorry she didn't win it.

It's an interesting race for another reason, which is that the counties voting today aren't necessarily the counties that the new Representative will represent. By the same token, many of the voters in today's 9th will actually be represented by the winner of the 10th district contest, in which they have no say today.

22 comments:

The toughest part of voting, at least for me, is keeping up with the various openings on and candidates --their backgrounds and their records/actions, not just their campaign's stylin' & profilin'-- for the courts.

I do know that the new 9th is probably going to come out all right no matter who wins. The establishment candidate is Dan Collins, the guy that Zell Miller came down to endorse because of their "mountain bond." I don't see how they can go wrong, unless Martha(!) isn't as competent a legislator as she is a swashbuckler.

Ga. grew about 18% from the 2000 to 2010, according to the census, resulting in the addition of one more congressional seat. This brought the previous congressional district count from 13 seats to 14 seats.

The redistricting passed the legislature and was signed by the Governor. It's now precleared.

Well, now I'm confused; that 2014 map is different from all the ones I've seen before. It's also different from the Wikipedia account, although I'm not sure that account is right. Your map suggests that we are going to be in the 9th next year.

We early-voted, since the turnout was expected to be so low that there was no need for precinct stations -- we all voted downtown. That left us feeling strangely unsatisfied, with no poll results to go home to after a hard day running the election. But tonight's the night! I'll certainly post as soon as I learn anything. Cruz has been way ahead in the polls.

According to what the SOS is reporting, voter turnout was a whopping two and a half percent. Given that gerrymandering has made the primary the whole election in most parts of Georgia, that's pretty sad. Lots of folks will get out to anoint the victor of today's contest in November "when it matters," but when they actually had a choice, they didn't show up.

Actually, it's not quite as bad as it looks. That percentage is climbing as votes come in from the counties. It read at first as if they had a final count; but it's up to five percent already, and will surely go higher as other counties report.

So far it looks like we're going for a runoff in the 9th, with a third candidate receiving just enough votes to keep either Collins or Martha(!) from getting to victory.

T-SPLOST is being poorly received almost everywhere except, oddly, down towards Savannah and the coast. There must be some particular projects -- port improvements? River dredging? -- that are on the minds of local voters down there.

Ted Cruz, an insurgent backed by the Tea Party, defeated the candidate favored by Gov. Rick Perry on Tuesday in a runoff election for the Republican Senate nomination that revealed a wide rift in Texas between the party establishment and restless, anti-incumbent activists on the right.

With the come-from-behind victory, Mr. Cruz is heavily favored to win the Senate seat being vacated in November by Kay Bailey Hutchison and appears likely to become a star of the national conservative movement.

Mr. Cruz, 41, is the latest conservative rebel to bring down an established party leader, tapping into simmering anger and anti-incumbent frustration within the Republican ranks nationwide.

*Scratches head and wonders why in such a thriving economy the population is not eager to give more of their money to the gub'ment. What with gub'ment being so frugal and judicious with tax revenue, and never diverting said monies from their intended purpose*

My other favorite issue on this year's ballot was the question, "Should Georgia have casino gambling, with proceeds going to education?" The results seem to be running about even.

However, the real question at issue is, "Should Georgia cede part of its land forever to a Native American nation, for the purpose of them running casinos on our behalf?" And, you know, that's a slightly different question.

You would not believe how many friends in Atlanta I have that were campaigning for T-SPLOST. All I can think of is that there was some major project in Atlanta they wanted funded, but I fail to see how they thought that was going to be a winner across the rest of Georgia. Then I see the results bthun reported, and I'm amazed to see it even lost (and lost BADLY) in Atlanta.